John Edwards
I ran into this post from John Edwards' campaigners.
I would still welcome any discussion about the Edwards campaign.
He's a good man.
He's still in my own 'top-tier' of the Democratic field.
Even though Edwards is from the South and I hail from the North, my own Grandfather worked in the coal mines of Pennsylvania in his youth and went on to send his
children to college so they could have a better life than he did.
Our stories are much the same.
I can identify with the place from which Senator Edwards has come and I appreciate his view of where
he thinks we should be headed.
I think he made a mistake recently in his comments to Howard Dean during the "Rock the Vote" debate, but I can
understand why so many of the contending Democrats feel the need to take the front-runner down a few pegs.
I don't think, however, we should make suspicion-generating statements about our geographic differences
when we are talking about leadership and cooperation.
Senator Edwards should emphasize we're in this together.
I look forward to seeing what Senator Edwards has to say on Meet the Press with Tim Russert this Sunday.
A Good Article on the Political Effects of Temporary Upswing in Economy
Bottom line, it's mostly about public perception.
People are easily swayed to believe all is suddenly rosy wth our economy.
Most people do not have a good understanding of the economy and rely upon Greenspan, Buffet,
brokers and talking CNBC heads to drive their opinions.
I heard Ron Brownstein on CNN yesterday chatting manically about the latest news as if we hadn't lost
2.7 million jobs in the last two years and that the news of 126,000 jobs (mostly McJob quality) was the ticket for a Bush reelection in 2004. (That's 126,000 jobs nation-wide..there are 50 states..58 counties in California alone..average out 126,000 jobs amongst 50 states and then by county).
Brownstein's a professional...he should know better than to mislead CNN viewers.
How disappointing.
Most people do not understand what this huge defecit will eventually mean for them personally if we do not turn things around.
From the article:
"...The train wreck that has been arranged for the day when the government's ravenous appetite for IOUs to finance unheard of red ink collides with both the capital needs of a recovering economy and the huge cost of my generation's impending retirement will come after next year's election. It will come, but deficits do not matter politically the way they mattered in 1992 when they were an obvious factor in the stagnation that hurt Bush's dad.."
"...There is not going to be a repeat of the third quarter performance. The latest round of tax cuts has been mostly spent, imports will go back up, there is a much smaller volume of mortgage refinancing to provide extra cash, and states and localities have only just begun slashing services and jobs.
Nonetheless there has been an unprecedented amount of budgetary and monetary stimulus applied to the US economy over the last 30 months and at some point it is going to respond. The political question is partly how much, but it also involves whether the output recovery is perceived by people as actually improving their standard of living.
For the perception question to be answered favorably for Bush, there have to be a lot more jobs producing more after-tax, after-inflation income for people who live off their paychecks and pension checks..."
~~~~~~~~
Another note on the subject.
Check out the headline:
DISASTER FOR DEMS
By JOHN PODHORETZ
NY Post
I would imagine "Great News for Americans" would be a healthy title...even though I don't
agree that the news is all that great.
I don't believe that Podhoretz considers Democrats to be "American".
There was a word I used to like to use as a kid to describe the attitude of people like those at the NY Post..
the word was "skeevy".
I looked the word up..it was actually in the dictionary.
It said:
Skeevy:
Adjective; Personal attributes that may arouse nausea an another.
Used in a sentence: "From a distance he's suave and debonair; but when he gets close, you can see he's all skeevy with his greasy hair, unshaven face, and mix of body odor and cheap cologne."
I suppose that sums up the way I view the NY Post. The cover looks inviting,
but when you get close, they're pretty skeevy.
Here's the line Skeevy Podhoetz used to end his ninth-grade-reading-level column:
"That's pretty impressive, even before you think about the 7.2 percent growth figure. The dark lining in this silver cloud is, of course, the loss of 2 million jobs - but that will be ending. Even if growth slows down to a less sizzling pace of 4 percent or so, there will be sustained job creation throughout 2004.
And if that does happen, it's almost a certainty that one person will be keeping his job: George W. Bush"
Wait until growth comes down to a fizzling pace.
I shake my head increduously and wonder how people can be so gullible.
Sanitizing the truth may become Bush's downfall
It's time to remove your news filters, Mr. Bush
This opinion rings of so much truth.
Bush has obviously been avoiding the subject of casualties in his speeches. He's attended no funerals or memorials for soldiers. I heard a father of a deceased troop stating that Bush never called him. Shouldn't a father of a
troop who gave all expect that call?
In public, Bush has been making strong and unrealistic suggestions to the American media, suggesting they self-censor when it comes to the news that isn't "pretty".
Bush's reliance upon a rarely-used rule allowing him to censor
the media's showing of the dead as they return from overseas is causing many Americans who may have been shakily supporting him to now think of him as a leader without a lot of empathy or character.
How do I come to this conclusion?
I talk with people.. everyday Americans like you and me.
"Time to remove your filters, Mr. Bush. It's a messy world out there, but we all have to live in it."
Civil Rights Attorney to Dean: "Confederate Flap: Stand Firm, Howard Dean"
By Constance L. Rice, LA Times
"Go for it. And you don't need to apologize."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Giant union throws its weight behind Dean
~~~~~~~~~~~
Dean: Brutal Ruler Doesn't Justify Force
Bill Frist proving to be worse than Trent Lott as Senate Majority leader
Leadership and uniting Senate are obviously not his strong points
Current Senate train wreck:
Frist Accuses of Democrats of Undermining Intelligence Panel
By Ken Guggenheim Associated Press Writer
This is about a a Democratic memo leaked this week that outlines a strategy for exposing contradictions between intelligence reports and Bush's claims about Iraqi weapons programs.
The memo in question was apparently STOLEN...then leaked.
Jay Rockefeller's capability as an effective Senator has been in much doubt as of late, IMHO,
judging from what I've seen from him on recent FOX interviews. Rockefeller was totally
careless in allowing something like this staff-memo to fall by the wayside.
The paranoid Pat Roberts is whining that Democrats are "plotting against him".
Roberts went on with his paranoid complaint (which may actually be a deceptive way to pull the plug on a
decent investigation), saying:
"The memo said that at some point the Democrats could 'pull the trigger'. When I read that, I felt like they're going to pull the trigger on me."
Dirty business all around.
This is a clarion call to elect a President in 2004 who is outside the sloppy and jaded Washington loop.
I'm convinced that few of them hold the people's interest as their priority.
I'm especially convinced that these GOP-ers would sell their mothers to Saddam Hussein to steal power
from Democrats.
The Dems don't owe them an apology...they owe them a gobulous spit in their thieving slanderous faces.
If the Bush administration hadn't abused intelligence and misled the people so many times while troops continue
to die, it never would have come to this sad state of affairs in the Senate. The Republicans on the Intelligence
Committee are in a pickle. How long can they continue to cover for the worst President in American history while attempting to slander their political Democratic brethren in Congress?
They're beginning to look ludicrous.
Here is the most ludicrous statement of them all...not to mention insulting to the intelligence of the American people:
From NewsMax:
"Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said Thursday that Sen. Zell Miller, D-Ga., was right to charge this week that a memo outlining plans by Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats to politicize Iraq war intelligence borders on "treason."
Oh, please. Someone get Orrin Hatch a valium or a lollipop. He's going off again.
MUSIC BREAK: Go here to hear Orrin's
lovely and inspirational recording of "Heal Our Land". Then start praying we obtain a real leader
who will do just that.
I hope this committee investigation derailment orchestrated artfully and stealthily by the GOP members of
the committee will speed us toward a full and independent investigation.
This memo could never be a bigger scandal than the scandalous reason the Committee is there in the first place--
a President who misled (perhaps criminally) the people of America about the reasons our sons and daughters would meet horrendous
conditions..horrendous injury...horrendous death.
Now THERE'S the scandal.
Cowardice violations can be punished by death.
Luckily, the Army dismissed a cowardice charge and filed a lesser count against an Army interrogator who sought counseling after he saw the body of an Iraqi man cut in half by American fire.
The poor fellow won't have to die because he got upset and sick over a bloody mangled corpse cut in half.
Oh, goodie.
How awesome of the Army to not kill him.
I'm feeling warm and fuzzy..how about you?
There's a great recruiting come-on...
"Join us and we just might not KILL you for puking when you see someone's guts blown all over you."
The bogeymen are allegedly stalking American cities
'Mwuhahahaha!'
MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute, is reporting a message titled "A Warning to Muslims in America". It's an alleged directive which was issued by the previously unknown "Islamic Bayan Movement" and first ran on the Global Islamic Media Web site this past Monday.
I wonder--is this a deliberate scare tactic on the part of MEMRI (who has shown unusual bias against the Arab world in the past) ...or our own government?
I trust them so little these days that I wouldn't put it past them.
FOX is always a seemingly willing and avid participant in the dissemination of dramatic and terrifying information.
Maybe it's just fundamental Islam f*king with our minds.
All I know (and/or believe) is this--
1. There's a hell of a lot more good people in this world than there are terrorists.
2. We have never come close to meeting the objective of bringing Saddam or Osama Bin Laden to justice.
Where are they? If we were really going to be tough Texas-troopers, why weren't a couple of cheap-ass bullets to the back of the head used to remove Saddam and Osama instead of hundreds of American troops' lives and hundreds and hundreds more troops' limbs (while we still don't have them?)
3. We haven't come close to meeting the objective of 'draining the swamp' of terrorists. The bogeymen are still
taunting us (or at least we're being told they are) and they are multiplying like baby rabbits since we hopped on the Iraq war-wagon.
4-With righteous and simple, decent leadership, we could turn this mess around.
Who's the Enemy?
Have you seen this theory?
Do you buy into rumors and suspicion when you consider that in the Middle East, November 9th is written as "9-11"?
Are you going to let this stop you from shopping?
Will you still keep that Broadway show on your intinerary?
A great cross-section of Politics in the real America
General Discussion at American View is one of the best cross-section representations of the real America.
This is a group of people who are decidedly diverse in their political affiliations.
They have known eachother for several years and through all forms of heated argument, have found a way to
stay together and talk it through..and walk away when necessary.
This is what America's all about.
The view cannot possibly be more American than this.
Executive privilege seen as leak-case option
Shielding material is not ruled out
Beyond belief.
Filthy treason may be upheld and shielded under the name of Executive privilege.
I'd say "only in America.." but this kind of thing would happen in any nation in this world where
the people are corruptly barred from justice.
Without a special prosecutor, there will never be any justice...let alone any fruitful investigation.
"Despite President Bush's repeated pledges of full cooperation, administration officials yesterday refused to rule out invoking executive privilege to shield some documents from Justice Department investigators looking into whether someone in the White House illegally leaked the name of a CIA operative...."
PEACE DEAL ABORTED
ABC did some damn good investigative journalism here.
This story has long, swift legs. Congress had best keep up with it.
Note to Congress:
Investigate.
NY TIMES STORY
BBC STORY
GUARDIAN STORY
ANANOVA STORY
~~~~~~~~~
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfled said at a Pentagon news conference Thursday:
"The regime of Saddam Hussein had ample - well beyond ample - opportunity to avoid war..."
They forgot to add a line he didn't vocalize, yet what I imagine must be true...
"...but we did not- in good faith - allow them an ample - opportunity to avoid a war that we knew would take the lives of hundreds of our own troops and thousands of Iraqi civilians' lives."
I strongly believe Donald Rumsfeld is lying through his teeth.
Sports, Ideology and Other Distractions
-On Exploiting Decent People
-Rising to the Top
-The Evolution of Cooperation
~~~~~~~~~~~
This is an excellent column by blogateer (modern-day pamphleteer) Anonymoses.
Democratic Debate: Senator John Edwards Has Made A Grave Error
"Let me tell you, the last thing we need in the South is somebody like you
coming down and telling us what we need to do."
Who said this?
Was it a Civil War-era white Southerner speaking to Lincoln?
Was it a Civil-Rights-era white Southerner speaking to LBJ?
Was it Zell Miller speaking to Tom Daschle?
Most curiously, no.
It was Democratic Presidential candidate John Edwards speaking to Howard Dean.
Why?
Because Howard Dean wishes to include all Americans under the "big tent"...proclaiming that those
with Confederate flags were welcome.
I think this one line may prove to be the biggest mistake John Edwards ever could have made..
for his own candidacy and for the self-destructing Democratic party.
If you are truly American, it's all our Heritage..whether you live in Bangor, Maine or Biloxi, Mississippi
I walked through a Confederate cemetary in Fredericksburg, Virginia last Spring.
I understood that the young men laid under that ground in their beloved and beautiful Virginia
didn't fight for that flag because they hated blacks. It wasn't as simple as that. I wish we could say it was.
There is still a civil war going on. It's a war of ideologies.
Howard Dean could be our Uniter.
God and Nature know we need a Uniter.
Our united nation is withering before our very eyes.
John Edwards sounded more like Zell Miller...or a rebel secessionist..or a resentful 1960s-Selma white... last night than sounding like a 21st-century enlightened, inclusive Presidential candidate.
He made a mistake far more revealing than anything Howard Dean could have said on the subject.
By simply separating Southerners from Americans and feigning offense at Dean's supposed Northern arrogance and
intervention, Edwards is showing America that he's a throwback to 1850s-America.
My God, we don't need that kind of thought anymore.
I suspect there is still strong Southern separatist thought within the GOP, but I did not suspect
that those who claimed to be progressive still harbored such territorial suspicion.
This isn't North vs. South..it shouldn't be.
THIS IS AMERICA.
We cry "United We Stand" and in the next breath betray animosty toward our
fellow party-member because of his geographical origin.
If this is still North vs. South, even among our most progressive politicians,
then we've made no progress since the end of the dreadful Civil War.
It only leads me to believe what I have believed for a long time.
The Civil War was never competely resolved.
War rarely provides a true healing or a true resolution.
When the North "won" the Civil War, they applied a really good band-aid, but I think it had a "TO BE CONTINUED" sign stashed under the bandage.
The GOP is slick and savvy enough to know not to air their filthy laundry in front of all America.
They are the worst of all in all their white hegemony.
We know it. It speaks for itself.
The Democratic party shows weakness by letting themselves fall all over each other in all these debates when they know the GOP Wolf and all the drooling right-partisan pundits are on their heels.
Howard Dean is a maverick who refreshingly spills the truth..he's the blatantly honest child in the
"Emporer's New Clothes" tale. He is intelligent enough to spill the truth and let all other candidates
betray themselves for the people they truly are.
Win or lose in 2004, he is the face of the future of America.
John Edwards made a grave error for himself and for his party last night.
Howard Dean is holding a hand out to the South.
(It's amazing-the lengths to which our politicians go to pander to them)
Howard Dean: "I am not going to take a back seat to anybody in terms of fighting bigotry.”
"We [Democrats] are not going to make progress if we don’t broaden the tent.”
John Edwards: "Let me tell you, the last thing we need in the South is somebody like you
coming down and telling us what we need to do."
WHO IS THE REAL SEPARATIST?
~~~~~~
see William Saletan's commentary about the bum rap that was laid on Howard Dean by his fellow Democratic candidates.
I heard James Carville on NPR saying that the Democrats lost a crucial opportunity to turn the whole issue around
to Bush's hypocrisy-through-silence on the Confederate flag issue in South Carolina.
They should have known better than to trash one another. As Anonymoses eloquently wrote recently,
"Democrats, Use Your Time Wisely".
~~~~~~
"Howard Dean is a maverick who refreshingly spills the truth..he's the blatantly honest child in the
"Emporer's New Clothes" tale. He is intelligent enough to spill the truth and let all other candidates
betray themselves for the people they truly are."................
"But he has nothing on!" cried a child.
"The child tells the truth," said his father quietly.
And the people began to whisper to one another what the child had said.
"He has nothing on ! The child says he has nothing on!"
And the Emporer, hearing what they had said, shivered. For he knew their words were TRUE.
But it would never DO to stop the procession...so he held himself stiffer than ever.
Real Men Aren't Metrosexual (?)....
Being Anti-Iraq-War is Gay...No decent Republican is Metrosexual...
infers Columnist Mark Steyn
Someone should suggest to Steyn that he use a better ending for his columns
than his cheapshot "Nah-Nah"-quality
"Or maybe that 7.2 percent economic growth will collapse to 6.4 percent.."
That 7.2 percent, over time will prove to be like the first little pig's house.
One huff..one puff of stinky air and it's bound to be blown to hell with no solid foundation.
.jpg)
"7.2%, eh?"
( (whooooooooooosssshhhh) )
As Paul Krugman quoted the late Herbert Stein in today's NY Times column,
"Things that can't go on forever, don't."
A real man---a political metrosexual--would understand that in his trying to see Venus best
from his vantage point on Mars,
there is a very, very big picture to be viewed.
A dynamo-American political metrosexual would be concerned with liberty and justice for all instead of living in a state of denial in dark ignorance.
It is no sin for a real man to change his mind when he sees what a blooming disaster has been
produced by his darkness.
Ego-driven Republican men tend to fail to see things clearly and therefore fail to
do the right things..even though they claim to BE 'the Right'. What's worse, ego-driven Republican men tend to
pridefully and stubbornly hold to their "absolute truths" and destroy others in the process.
In order for any of us to 'do the right thing', we first need to see not only Mars,
but Venus and the rest of the big picture.
There is an entire universe out here, boys.
That's why I love Metrosexuals. They see the true and right relationship of all things.
That's the only path to liberty and justice for ourselves and for our brothers and sisters.
Oh---and they usually have the hottest coifs and threads.
Too, too Mars
No hinge-head hairdos will do for our men.
And ohhhh, they understand the secret to a happy life is well-moisturized skin!
Metrosexuals have the secret to happiness
I'm glad Steyn admits to being a Metrosexualphobe.
It confirms every suspicion I've ever had about the collective ego of the GOP male population.
Guess what?
Women adore Metrosexuals...
..and we still have the right to vote, much to your bloody chagrin.
Andrew Cohen on 21st century enlightenment
What does enlightenment mean in the 21st century?
What does enlightenment mean in the 21st century? It really means everything. It means the evolution of our species and the survival of our species. It doesn't mean anything less than that. And very practically, it means that more and more of us have to be willing to recognize who we truly are, take responsibility for the implications, and be willing to live the gift of human life for very different reasons than the ones we've been living for up until now.
Andrew Cohen
Oslo, Norway, May 2003
from AndrewCohen.org
or additional inspiration, see The Guru and the Pandit
-Andrew Cohen and Ken Wilber in dialogue.
Andy Rooney: "If I Were Bush's Speechwriter ..."
Here's at least one good thing from CBS this week.
The bad news is that the cowardly CBS has allowed themselves to be censored by the free market.
The unobjective screamers who have never seen the television movie about Ronald Reagan
have ensured that it will be hidden from non-premium TV-customers' sight due to a risk of financial damage
to the network through advertising loss.
When first amendment rights are removed by 'special interests', via the free market, which is what has doubtlessly occurred here, we see
just another example of how "liberty" is imperfectly produced by the free market.
There were no real debates...no votes...only loud complants from a few partisan people with a stick up their ass
about artistic freedom.
I plan to boycott the integrity-challenged CBS and their sponsors..period.
I hate most of their shows, anyhow. They've nearly broken Dan Rather. He even looks broken nowadays..have you noticed?
CSI (not 'Miami') is about the only worthwhile production I've seen there in the past five years.
The damage caused to CBS by the silent majority will wind up doing them far more damage
than they could possibly imagine.
I hope the Showtime version omits nothing from the original script.
The anti-war camp was right, but that's no reason to be smug
By Jonathan Freedland
THE GUARDIAN
It IS, however, reason to elect new American leadership in 2004.
Freedland is right on the money, however, when he says:
"..It's no good thinking, as some on the left have, that there could be merit in the US (especially) getting a bloody nose in Iraq."
"..People who can murder UN or Red Cross workers do not deserve to be viewed as warriors in a heroic anti-imperialist struggle."
"..Those who opposed the war need to start thinking ahead. Some activists are already doing just that, debating what needs to happen next."
"..occupiers have responsibilities: once they take over a country, it is up to them to make sure power and water work, schools and hospitals function. The Americans and Brits cannot just cut and run. Rather, they should work out a fast-track plan for a peaceful withdrawal, handing power over Iraq to Iraqis themselves...In place of an American pro-consul, the country needs to come under a UN mandate. This would require a loss of face by Washington, letting the likes of France and Germany in on the action, but the alternative -- young American soldiers remaining a shooting gallery for Iraqi fighters -- is surely worse."
"...the peace camp has to put its victory in the last argument behind it -- and fight the battle ahead."
I suggest a full reading of ths article.
It makes a world of sense.
Political schadenfreude is dandy until you realize that the Iraqis are suffering injustice upon injustice.
I only hope people will not forget the dangerous stupidity of Bush if and when this is all said and done.
Afghanistan Will be 'Islamic Republic of Afghanistan'...
Nation to Remain a Theocracy
Will the progression from Islamic Emirate to Islamic Republic create conditions for healthy democracy at all?
Does the absence of sharia law equate to liberty?
An Islamic Republic is based more on obedience and allegiance and less on democracy.
There is always extreme contradiction when you have what constitutes the rule of God vs. the rights of citizens.
An open society, a crucial ingredient of healthy democracy, is discouraged when theocratic forces are allowed to
dominate.
THINK IRAN!
I am having serious doubts about America's post 9-11 success in Afghanistan.
It causes me grief to think our troops are dying for a similar result in Iraq.
~~~~
Ref: Afghanistan Constitution
Clinton the Philosopher
" Once you believe you have the absolute truth,
then it’s not possible for everyone to count..
or for everyone to have a role to play in the world.
There is a truth,
life is a search for it,
religion is a pathway to it,
but we’re all imperfect and nobody has it. "
_______________
William Jefferson Clinton
from a speech at Yale Center for the Study of Globalization
31 Oct 2003
~~~~~~~
Clinton the Democratic advisor
To a Yale student’s pessimistic query of how to battle what he perceived as a right-leaning uncritical media and the Republican dominance of the federal government, Clinton advised to fight against it.
"Instead of being bereft, go work for someone who wants to do something different and turn it around,"
the president said, pointing to the energy surrounding the presidential campaigns of Democrats Howard Dean and Gen. Wesley Clark.
HOPE
Mepkin Abbey
"It is not uncommon to find that what we have put our energy into, indeed what we have staked our lives on, is unreliable. What then is our reason for hope? Can we continue in such circumstances? It is precisely when our faith is shaken and our love grows dim that hope really begins; it is in the wonder and weakness of our faith that we find hope’s real meaning. Hope is the willingness not to give up precisely when we draw no consolation from what we have previously found trustworthy and reliable. Hope does not try to determine how God’s ways will be shown, but remains open to new and astonishing manifestations of the divine presence. It allows something to come into life that is not of our own making. Hope is the retrieval of possibilities that come as gift."
Care to do some Monastic Surfing?
Want to know where to find the best Monastic fruitcake and creamed honey?
Once Upon A Time....
From IHT: William Pfaff: A fiction shattered by America's aggression
DO YOU?.....REALLY??
"......what actually has happened during the past nine months is something Americans have yet to grasp, and that others have yet to say out loud:
People outside the United States have stopped believing the American story. They say instead that terrorism is a way people wage war when they don't have F-16's or armored divisions.
They say that Chechens, Moros, Taliban, Colombian insurgents, Palestinian bombers and Iraqi enemies of the U.S. occupation do not really make up a single global phenomenon that the world must mobilize to defeat.
They say that, actually, they had never really believed the American story in the first place.
They had listened to it because Washington said it, and they respected Washington.
Now they don't."
CONTEST!
BUSH IN 30 SECONDS--
A political advertising contest sponsored by MoveOn.org Voter fund
"All eligible submissions will be posted on this web site and rated by visitors. The top rated ads will then be voted on by our panel of esteemed judges, including Michael Moore, Donna Brazile, Jack Black, Janeane Garofalo, and Gus Van Sant. The winning ad idea will be broadcast on television during the week of Bush's 2004 State of the Union address, and the winner will receive a recording of the ad as broadcast."
This and that....
World Net Daily says MSNBC is geting peeved at Chris Matthews for getting too critical of Bush these days.
"In a speech to university students, MSNBC host Chris Matthews characterized President Bush as a shallow-thinking, unlearned man.."
(If you ask me, this is no great, overly-critical, or new revelation. Chris is telling it like it is. We can all guess why GE might be concerned.)
The word is out that Chris Matthews is a Howard Dean-man.
"Matthews acknowledged that his personal favorite in the race is Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor who many see as the Democratic front-runner..."
What's up with this Betina Mixon? She had been awake all one night arguing with her husband, was late for an event (which happened to be Bush's speech) and "grew increasingly frustrated as she was turned away from the building at checkpoint after checkpoint. She then "took the matter into her own hands" and crashed through the checkpoint.
I wonder if she realizes this is the kind of thing that gets families killed in Iraq and Palestine nowadays?
Betina was lucky her brains (and those of her children, for Pete's sake) weren't blown out of her skull.
From UPI: Interview with Chief Minister of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province
~~~~~~~~~~
"America wanted to be the sole superpower and the defeat of the Soviet Union in Afghanistan was the sine qua non of its quest. Then came Taliban in the vacuum that followed the Soviet withdrawal. Taliban are not just students from madrassas. They are the same jihadis (holy warriors) who chased the Russians out. Many came from Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries to fight against the Russian invader. But when they tried to go home, they were treated as criminals and terrorists. Some were barred from returning home and others were sentenced to death or life imprisonment. So they returned to the region where they knew they would be welcome."
~~~~~~~~~~
This is a must-read.
See what the people of the PNF Province believe.
You may find yourself saying "I can't believe they see it that way"....
and in the next paragraph (or the next sentence)
you may be surprised to find yourself agreeing.
I'm certain there is a way to disentangle and reconciliate the disinformation which has caused seemingly wild accusations to be thrown our way by this Pakistani minster (and others like him), but it will never happen while we employ the tactics we are currently utilizing in this "war on terror".
I am certain that GW Bush will never be able to accomplish the difficult task of winning hearts and minds in the Arab world.
Just look at him...he miserably fails to win half of America's hearts and minds.
So where are we headed, people?
Bush is leading a divided nation.
Divided by his policies...policies for which he has had no mandate.
In this dangerous world we see angry, often-invisible, and misunderstood "enemies of the West". We are fools if we can't see that these "enemies" have been encouraged to join the hateful fight against us by the ignorant and aggressive actions of the Bush administration. We cannot trust Bush and his team of NeoCon idealists who have gotten us into a hornet's trap. We've been lied to....taken for fools. Our Congress has bought into the lies and facilitated this war with last year's Iraq Resolution. They should have known better.
It's time we start to listen to these people they like to call "terrorists".
It would behoove us to listen.
Either we listen or we fail.
Do you want us to fail?
Because, frankly, I don't want to see us fail in making this world a kinder and more peaceful place.
I'm not just talking about Kumbayah, either.
It's all about using the good sense we possess instead of our base savage instinct.
Sorry, war fans...
Bombing the hell out of this world and occupying the freshly-fried space just doesn't seem to work.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
"....Durrani firmly rejected the accusation that the NWFP's ruling coalition comprises Taliban-like religious zealots. "We are true democrats," he responded, "witness the way we conduct our policies in NWFP, in sharp contrast to the military dictatorship at the center. We also advocate peace with India over Kashmir; again witness the recent journey to New Delhi by one of our three top leaders with an offering of peace. As a result, India has responded with 12 confidence-building measures. The Holy (Koran) book teaches us peace, love and cooperation...."
"....Asked if he was suggesting that Taliban are for the most part foreigners, Durrani said, "in the literal sense (they) were no more than 1,000 at the outset. Later Taliban came to symbolize the entire Afghan nation. You might ask where did Osama Bin Laden come from? Who brought him back to Afghanistan after Sudan asked him to leave? The United States didn't seem too concerned about him in 1996 when he decided to go to Afghanistan. Later America was not interested in a negotiated solution. Imagine what the United States could have done if it had devoted the money it spent on bombing Afghanistan -- about $8 billion according to published reports -- to the reconstruction of the country after two decades of warfare. That would have been statesmanship of the highest order. Instead, you have chosen war and occupation and now you are faced with an increasingly hostile population...."
".....Durrani concluded the interview by saying that a world with one superpower "is very dangerous. There is no counterweight. Things were less dangerous during the Cold War when we had two superpowers. The same applies in a village that only has one elder. He could take unwise decisions with no countervailing force. A village is much safer with two elders. So was the world."
~~~~~~~~
For those of you who may find Durrani's suspicion of any Mossad / 9-11 connection as an insane and preposterous thought, see today's Herald (Glasgow).
While I'm away....
Make yourself at home.
Grab a hot cup (or cold bottle) of your favorite beverage and take a look around.
This October 28 wil mark the 41st anniversary of the end of the Cuban missile crisis.
The world breathed a collective sigh of relief after two superpowers headed off a potential nuclear confrontation.
President John F. Kennedy was praised for his diplomatic skills in averting a nuclear war.
I am very much afraid that our current President has no such diplomatic skill...and this is a far more dangerous time in which we live.
In 1962, the two superpowers found a new appreciation of the danger of nuclear weapons, which led to arms-control accords.
We are now a lone superpower.
We have a President who is not interested in honoring or creating accords.
He seems to have no knowlege or remembrance of the reasons we entered those accords.
We have a President who makes unsophisticated and one-sided demands of his allies as well as his enemies.
If we continue on this path...with this leader unwilling to employ respectful diplomacy...the animosity toward our nation and the people of our nation will be so strong that we will eventually be weakened and/or pulled down to an ugly and unrecognizable version of what was once a great and influential member of an international community.
While I'm away, consider the words of James G. Blight and Philip Brenner one year ago in their article entitled
"Cuban Missile Crisis: The Lessons for Iraq"
Think about all that has occurred this past year...and what we might be saying one year from today.
Take Care,
Jude
"...So one lesson we can learn by looking at Cuba's experience during the 1962 missile crisis is that our approach to weaker powers is fraught with danger and is not likely to achieve the results we seek. The United States tends to expect a weaker power will cower when the superpower roars, but in fact American efforts to intimidate are more likely to produce the opposite effect. Intimidation emboldens the small power, and however irrational the resulting behavior may seem to us, a weaker power may resort to unimaginable acts as a last line of defense. The Central Intelligence Agency recently came to the same conclusion in its assessment that Saddam Hussein would become "much less constrained" if faced with an attack led by the United States.
Ultimately, what Cuba demanded from the United States in 1962 is the same attitude that American allies have been furiously urging the United States to adopt in general and toward Iraq in particular: that the lone superpower act like a "normal" country and accord others the same rights to survival and sovereignty that the United States demands for itself. The allies have implored the United States to engage Iraq diplomatically and to rely on the United Nations and established international legal principles, which recognize that all nations -- great and small powers alike -- should be treated equally.
Is Iraq "another Cuba"? Not exactly. There are many differences between the two cases. But we believe a key similarity between them has received too little attention from those advocating pre-emptive action against Baghdad. It is this: The inability (or unwillingness) of the United States to empathize with those who feel the threat of annihilation -- people who may be willing to fight to the last man, woman, and child and even to use unthinkable weapons -- increases the likelihood that such weapons will be used, with all the horror and uncertainty that would follow.
We now know that the hawks advising Kennedy in October 1962 were dead wrong to recommend attacking Cuba with what they (mistakenly) believed would be an "acceptable" cost and risk. Might those advocating a pre-emptive strike on Iraq also be wrong in their assessment of the likely consequences?
Based on our reading of Cuba's mind-set 40 years ago, we believe it is worth considering that the hawks might also be wrong about Saddam Hussein and Iraq today. It just may be that the events of October 1962 constitute, if not a crisis for all seasons, at least a cautionary tale with disturbing relevance to the season that is upon us."
Take This Test!
http://www.politicalcompass.org/
The social dimension of politics is important. That's the dimension that the mere left-right scale doesn't adequately address. So Political Compass has added one, ranging in positions from extreme authoritarian to extreme libertarian.
My result was here:
Close to this fellow:
NOTE: Don't spoil the results by reading the Analysis section before you take the test.
FLORIDA may "big-foot" the DNC Dems into participating in straw poll
Certain DNC Dems' personal campaigns are worried about the straw polls, I'm sure.
I find it curious that all candidates signed a "snub-letter" to the Florida DNC, yet Howard Dean had recently urged Florida to push on with the straw poll. See Palm Beach Post article here.
My personal opinion?
The mainstream media is about nothing if it's not about beauty contests.
We hear the "media mouthpiece" day in/day out without ever being able to talk back en masse.
Media polls are unreliable pieces of doo-doo because they rely on the usual 1000-1500 people who are dumb enough to answer their phones at dinnertime.
That's politics..and with straw polls, we have democracy in a healthy form.
(As opposed to the one-way media).
I say "bring 'em on".
Let's see what the people are thinking.
Warning to DNC and Dems: REMEMBER CALIFORNIA!
The people are desiring more of a voice in politics..ignore them at your own peril.
Here are some quotes from the article highlighted above:
"...Democratic activists on the state party's central committee are scheduled to vote Nov. 16 on whether to hold a straw poll. Even in the face of threatened boycotts, support for a straw poll appears to be overwhelming..."
"...Gov. Howard Dean and North Carolina Sen. John Edwards have assured *him they will be at the convention no matter what."
*speaking about Jon Ausman, a DNC member from Tallahassee
"I don't think any of the top-tier candidates can afford to ignore Florida and alienate the very people they will need."
Florida Democratic Chairman Scott Maddox
"I am announcing Jean-Claude van Damme as the new governor of Montana!"
-quote from Daily Show host John Stewart at 8th Annual GQ Men-of-the-Year Awards
Bush Heckled by Aussie Senator
"I love free speech." GW Bush 10-22-03
ie: go ahead, ass
".... they're reminders to all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do. This is not a time for remarks like that; there never is..." Bush Press Secy Ari Fleischer 9-26-01
ie: shuddap, ass
Wal Mart Employees arrested by U.S. government in 61 different stores across the country
I'm certain Wal Mart was more than cooperative in this Ashcroftian crusade.
So the world's largest retailer who imports goods made from some of the cheapest labor in the world doesn't want to promote the same kind of people here in America...let 'em go back to where they belong and make that nickel a day.
I'm sure you'll be happy to know Wal Mart shares were up 4 cents at $58.28 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Dennis Prager--America's Next Civil War
photo by Iddybud
"......Whatever your politics, you have to be oblivious to reality to deny that America today is torn by ideological divisions as deep as those of the Civil War era. We are, in fact, in the midst of the Second American Civil War..."
"..Added together, the differences suggest people who live in different worlds that are on a collision course...."
Related:
See my blogpost Two Nations Under God??...Indivisible??
In today's news...
"..somebody doesn't like sara lee....."
_ _ _
A Howard Dean Op Ed
The man has a plan.
_ _ _
In today's Washington Post:
1- The Kerry campaign feigns surprise at fellow Dem candidate Dean employing "attack" tactics in early campaign advertising. (Who's actually missing the boat?)
2- Kudos to MoveOn.org in their protest for a more aggressive investigation into the leaking of the name of a CIA operative whose husband had been critical of the Bush administration. (Dare I reprint her name?)
_ _
I'd mention the Rumsfeld admission that Iraq is a total blooming mess, but that really isn't news, is it?
_ _
Columnist Richard Cohen on the current state of Germany-U.S. relations
".....With the collapse of the Soviet Union, German-American relations were bound to change. The common enemy was gone. But whatever differences were going to emerge have been exacerbated by the Bush administration's haughty and abrasive style. Might may make right but, as America will discover when it needs them, it does not make friends..."
Few people know how
to take a walk.
photos by Iddybud
The qualifications are endurance,
plain clothes, old shoes,
an eye for nature, good humor,
vast curiosity, good speech,
good silence,
and nothing too much.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Bush to Sign Partial Birth Abortion Bill
How neat..clean...sterile.
Ooops...this one's a bit too yucky and real.
Like the photos of dead soldiers and civilians.
Get rid of it--quickly!
I support Bush's move on this one.
Trust me, I would fight until I could fight no longer if a woman's right to choose was truly threatened.
Partial birth abortion is murder.
All emotion and partisan politics aside...when you pull out a late-term living human entity and stab it with a steely instrument in order for it to die a painful death, it's murder.
I can't find another name for it.
It's the Achilles' heel of the Democrats. They too often pander to the far-left political groups who tend to forget
what is actually happening when a name for a procedure sweetens over the fact that a bona fide killing is taking place.
NeoCon Controversy
There is one line in this article with which I totally disagree.
It goes:
"Iraq was far more of a threat to the U.S. than a civil war in a far-away province of Yugoslavia. President Bush got the support of Congress for the Iraq war."
It betrays the writer as biased...definitely partisan.
That "far-away" province wasn't so "far-away" on today's global scale.
Make no mistake about this:
An unstable Europe would have allowed for an increase in the strength and activity of Middle Eastern WMD proliferation..right under our eyes.
As the writer himself admits, the Kosovo war, for all the civilians killed, has not stopped murderous desire and hatred amongst the Serbs and ethnic Albanians.
Perhaps Saddam would have actually had WMDs if we were caught up in the middle of an implosion of Eastern Europe.
As in this unjust and ugly Iraq folly, the Kosovo war was just another example of how twisted and result-aberrant the very idea of WAR actually is.
But I will say this:
The rest of this piece deserves a reading.
Any vague reliance upon NeoCons (aka the New Crusaders) will be a danger to America's survival.
Karen Kwiatkowski
Know her?
If not, you should.
Start here.
Abrogate: to treat as nonexistent
Function: verb
Synonyms: abolish, abate, annihilate, annul, invalidate, negate, nullify, quash, undo, vitiate
"When the security of this nation is threatened, Congress and the American people give the president great latitude," We probably have given this president more flexibility, more latitude, more range, unquestioned, than any president since Franklin Roosevelt -- probably too much. The Congress, in my opinion, really abrogated much of its responsibility."
Senator Chuck Hagel R-Nebraska
Oct 20- in a speech at the Gallup Organization World Conference in Omaha.
CENSORED
The Bush administraion worries that its military action in Iraq will lose support once the public sees the remains of U.S. soldiers arriving at air bases in flag-draped caskets.
Their solution?
Cutting off the public from the images by banning media coverage and photography of non-living soldiers' homecomings on all military bases.
It's legal to censor this type of coverage..so Bush is within his rights...though
our respect for Bush as an enabling leader of a free society is greatly diminished.
Politics and propaganda before honoring the beloved dead..that's what politics is all about.
Censorship of the honorable ceremony for the war-dead is a dirty warmongerer's tactic.
Bush is plainly a born-again Christian leader fighting the Islamic fundamentalist world.
This is a holy war, no matter how they try to label it.
The attacks on 9-11 were facilitated and funded by the weak and terrorist-bribing Saudi Arabian government.
Bush has protected them for reasons we do not understand....no reason could make good sense.
He sends our men and women to face death while lying about the reasons for being there.
He prefers all of us to ignore the maimed and the dead.
He enables corrupt regimes to go on...unscathed.
Some of us may not see it with our eyes...but we do not deny the reality because we know it in our hearts.
Decent and caring Americans like Jeff Horton of Stoughton, Wisconsin understand.
In the most recent Zogby poll, more Americans disapprove than approve of Bush's performance.
I can just imagine how those numbers would tank to the depths of poll-hell if Americans were allowed just a glimpse of what is really happening.
Shame on you, Bush!
Beware of "new story" Being Spread by the mysterious "L", courtesy of Conservative Rumor Mills---it's an old and shady story
Two years ago on Frontline(PBS) there was an interview with Iraqi defector Saba Khodada. He spoke of the terrorist camp at Salman Pak.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He was asked:
[Did you hear that some of those training at the camp were working for Osama bin Laden?]
Khodada: Nobody came and told us, "This is Al Qaeda people," but I know there were some Saudis, there were some Afghanis. There were some other people from other countries getting trained. They didn't tell us they were part of Al Qaeda; there's no such thing. ... In this camp, we know that those are Saudis, or Arabs are getting trained. Nobody will talk about Al Qaeda or any other organization.
[They're just people.]
Khodad: Yes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Salman Pak was no great secret to the U.S....nor was it ever proven that activities at Salman Pak were related whatsoever to 9-11.....that is, until now...when Bush and Cheney desperately need it to LOOK that way.
Enter the oh-so-credible "L" and his oh-so-verifiable(???) and new(???)story coming out...
Yet, for over two years it's been spread across the red meat Conserative rumor mills and it is being re-generated with new fevered embellishment at sites like Front Page and World Net Daily.....(the same reputable news source who told us Arafat was dead a couple weeks ago...oye...now they're calling this a "new, breaking exclusive...dear God get me my barf bag!) Other spots I've seen the story: at the "selective Memri"(biased against Arabs) Middle East Media Research Institute. NewsMax loved Salman Pak, too. (Go read their story..they're all hot and bothered that Bush didn't jump on the Salman Pakwagon months ago).
Oh--and look who else loved talking about Salman Pak.
As an American, I'm so sick of being used for lies, innuendo, and exaggertion being used by these liars to make this unilateral attack upon Iraq look as if it was our only choice.
Bullshit, Front Page.
Bullshit, World Net Daily.
Bulshit, Memri.
Bullshit, Newsmax.
Bullshit, Rush.
Bullshit, INC.
Bullshit, "L".
"L" stands for lie. "L" story-- full of holes?
This is like the WMD lie-patrol starting up all over again.
Chalabi sucked Judith Miller in about the WMD stories and the NY Times fell right in line as suckers and made it front-page news.
It turned out to be total horsenuggets.
Here's Chalabi with one of his American bitches
Now Salman Pak is back...with the new and improved credibility of a dude named "L".
The NY Times had best be careful this time before printing this shit as gospel.
The Times already have at least one story (June 2002) about the training camp.
After Jayson Blair and Judith Miller in one year, they cannot afford to get sucked down the credibility drain in their rush to grab headlines from the usual Conservative total-shit rumor.
Read this for more skepticism about this shady story.
It's time we stop allowing ourselves to be brainwashed, people!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From the FRONTLINE website: "Sabah Khodada was a captain in the Iraqi army from 1982 to 1992. He worked at what he describes as a highly secret terrorist training camp at Salman Pak (see Khodada's hand-drawn map of the camp), an area south of Baghdad. In this translated interview, conducted in association with The New York Times on Oct. 14, 2001, Khodada describes what went on at Salman Pak, including details on training hijackers. He emigrated to the U.S. in May 2001. (Editor's Note: Although U.S. officials acknowledge terrorists were trained at Salman Pak, they say it is unlikely that these activities were related to the Sept. 11 attacks. It should also be noted that the two defectors interviewed for this report have been brought to FRONTLINE's attention by members of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), a dissident organization seeking to overthrow Saddam Hussein.)
Tough Talk from Sierra Times Columnist Means Little
Guest columnist Doug Hagin says of the Democratic party:
"....They have become a party of
pessimism, and a party, which puts America’s interest below their need for power."
First, the Sierra Times should have a better editor.
Their punctuation is horrendous.
Second, think about that statement:
"puts America's interest below their need for power."
Hmmm..do you mean someone who would send troops into dreaded harm's way without a decent plan for their
reasonable safety and security?
Someone who would use lies and exaggerations to lead his people into that same war?
Someone who would stonewall an investigation into the worst attack on America in history?
Someone who would prop and support his business associates in Saudi Arabia..the very nation who virtually attacked Americans in that attack on 9-11?
Someone who would support his business associates and campaign contributors who are raking in $2 out of every
THREE tax-dollars spent on the Iraq war?
Someone who created the most monstrous deficit in American history and asks middle class America for more sacrifice for war costs while asking nothing from..even rewarding his wealthy contributors?
Someone who has been totally ineffective at ensuring airport security as evidenced this week when a young man turned the Homeland security charade upside down?
Someone who nauseatingly hyped Iraq's "imminent threat" while reversing his policy on ignoring Korea's threat to America?
Someone who tells lies *er--I mean careless and ignorant mischaracterizations--* to foreign nations while at the same time overcommits his tired Military and unjustly talks down his own nation's Congress?
This isn't about retaining power?
This isn't about placing power interests before the interests of individual Americans?!
As for Doug Hagin, I'm afraid he's a pathetic sap.
He might as well drink some more of the KoolAid.
Doug lost me when he compared Dennis Kucinich to Elmer Fudd.
The Sierra Times comments on their website:
" any contribution is desperately needed and always accepted."
Their desperation is showing.
If I could talk to Doug Hagin, I'd say
"Get a clue, Doug Hagin. The Democratic party is a party of hope in what seems to be a hopeless time."
Doug should read some Al Franken.
Conservative Becky Miller did...even though she says she had to 'plug her nose' a few times...
Becky said:
"...The leaders we conservatives have trusted have taken advantage of our trust to line the pockets of the wealthy and powerful, and it's time we rose up and drove out these greedy liars. They've hijacked and distorted our belief system for their own gain, and in doing so are destroying our credibility.
And if we decent, honest, hard-working, patriotic, true-blue conservatives of this country neglect the duty we have to our children and grandchildren, we will never be able to work with those decent, honest, hard-working, patriotic, true-blue liberal Americans that these lying creeps have taught us to despise..."
Howard Dean in the News
A doctor in the house
ALEX MASSIE
Scotsman Online
This is an extremely informative article about Gov. Dean.
Excerpt:
"...As Dean criss-crosses the country, his grass-roots rebellion grows in strength. His opponents have stepped up their attacks on him, arguing that he’s a reckless fraud, incapable of winning support in the south, and an electoral disaster waiting to happen. Far from being discouraged by this, Dean’s supporters see it as proof that their man is the only candidate capable of delivering. As they put it, their country is sick and only a doctor can cure its ills - a doctor named Howard Dean."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jerusalem Post:
Candidate Dean hits Saudis on terrorism
By HERB KEINON
Oct. 20, 2003
"......Dean said arms sales to Saudi Arabia should be used as leverage with the Saudis, even though the US is not interested in bringing about a revolution there. He said that, if elected, dealing with Iran, Syria, and Saudi Arabia would be a focus of his foreign policy.
According to Dean, the US should make public the role Saudi Arabia plays in world terrorism. He took the Bush administration to task for censoring 21 pages of the government's report on the September 11 attacks, saying this was done in order to hide Saudi involvement from the public.
But rather than protecting the Saudis, Dean said, the US should be making them feel uncomfortable..."
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Democrats tempted to rethink funding
by Dick Polman
Philadephia Inquirer
20 Oct 2003
".....Howard Dean may soon decide to spurn public financing in 2004 - despite his original promise, uttered in March and repeated in June, to respect the historic reforms that were sponsored primarily by Democrats in the aftermath of Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal in the 1970s. If Dean opts out, rival John Kerry says he may do the same.
With Bush already opting out for the second time, any major Democratic defection would essentially signal a bipartisan renunciation of the system..."
"....Dean strategists now think they may stand a better chance of winning the nomination, and beating Bush, if they run a privatized campaign."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Pat Buchanan thinks Dean will be "the one", but stands no real chance of beating Bush
".....If Bush and Karl Rove, using the $170 million they plan to raise by spring, can paint Dean as pro-homosexual weddings, pro-hiking taxes and "soft on Saddam," Dean and the Democrats could face a wipeout
Nothing is certain in politics. Few predicted the Bush swoon of last summer. And the economy could go into that "double-dip" recession some predict. But as of now, it looks like "Four More Years!" for GWB."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Princeton loves Howard Dean
Ambush Teams Strike U.S. Targets in Iraq
By CHARLES J. HANLEY AP Special Correspondent
published 09:39 PM - OCTOBER 19, 2003 Eastern Time
If this article doesn't help you to see just how bad things are going in Iraq, God help you.
JOHN MCCAIN SHOULD BE CAREFUL WHO HE CALLS "INCAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING NATIONAL SECURITY RESPONSIBILITIES"
Howard Dean has made this recent statement regarding the $87 Billion Appropriation..
in part:
"..I would oppose President Bush's latest request for a blank check unless the President submits a new plan that is paid for out of the tax cut. The new plan must give our troops what they need and bring them home safely, share this burden with other nations, ensure the stabilization and rebuilding of Iraq, and make sure that the billions of dollars we are spending are not wasted and used to pay off big corporations. Congress must demand that the President submit this new plan immediately.
"Too many in my party, like Senators Kerry, Edwards and Lieberman, and Congressman Gephardt allowed the President to get us into this misguided war. It is clear General Clark also supported the war at this time. The right choice would have been voting 'no' last fall; voting 'no' now cannot erase that poor decision. Trying to have it both ways demonstrates neither strong leadership nor good judgment."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
TODAY IN THE WASHINGTON POST, WE SEE A QUOTE FROM AZ. SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN:
Quotable
"I'm not surprised that Governor Dean would oppose this. I've lost confidence that he has any understanding of the national security responsibilities of a president."
-- Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), to whom the formerly insurgent Howard Dean is often compared.
McCain was speaking to the Manchester Union-Leader
about Dean's opposition to the $87 billion requested for military operations and reconstruction in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
NOW:
CONSIDER THIS SITUATION FROM 1999- S.J. Res. 20--
"DEPLOYMENT OF U.S. ARMED FORCES TO THE KOSOVO REGION OF YUGOSLAVIA" (Senate - May 04, 1999)
[Page: S4611-Congressional Record]
WHAT IF THIS RESOLUTION HAD PASSED??!!??
If McCain has such "understanding" and others had fallen in line with hawkish-him and Biden in 1999, we would have had
a hell of a lot of dead American troops!
As it turned out, thank God and Clinton and General Clark, there was not one American life lost.
Look at this tripe from McCain in 1999 re: S.J. 20:
Mr. McCAIN: Mr. President, I want to speak plainly in the few minutes remaining to me. What I say now may offend some people, even some of my friends who support this resolution. I am sorry for that, but I say it because I believe it is the truth, the important truth, and it should be said. The President of the United States is prepared to lose a war rather than do the hard work, the politically risky work, of fighting as the leader of the greatest nation on Earth should fight when our interests and our values are imperiled.
We all know why in a few minutes this resolution is going to lose. It is going to lose because the President and members of his Cabinet have joined with the opponents to the war **???** and lobbied hard for the resolution's defeat. Do not believe administration officials when they tell you that the resolution would have been defeated even without their active opposition. Had they worked half as hard in support of it as they did to defeat it, the result would have been different today.
No, it is not that they could not win; it is because they did not want to win *???* that we are facing defeat this morning. That is a shame, a real shame.
I have said repeatedly that the President does not need this resolution to use all the force he deems necessary to achieve victory in Kosovo. I stand by that contention. And I have the good company of the Constitution behind me.
I had wanted this resolution considered in the now forlorn hope that the President would take courage from it and find the resolve to do his duty, his duty by us, the American people, by the alliance he leads, and by the suffering people of Kosovo who now look to America and NATO for their very lives. I was wrong, and I must accept the blame for that. The President does not want the power he possesses by law because the risks inherent in its exercise have paralyzed him. Let me identify for my colleagues the price paid by Kosovars for the President's repeated and indefensible ruling out of ground troops..."
To which Senator Tom Daschle replied:
DASCHLE: The distinguished Senator from Arizona made some comments about the President's unwillingness to use ground troops. It isn't just the President. It is all of his Joint Chiefs of Staff. It is everybody in the Pentagon who advises the President who has said, This is not the time; we do not want to commit ground troops at this point, Mr. President; don't request them. And he has not.
It is for this reason, Mr. President, that I reluctantly join in tabling this resolution today...
Until we have given every opportunity for the air campaign to work, moving to a new strategy is premature..."
Here is a Statement of Senator Carl Levin Vote on that same McCain/Biden Resolution:
Washington--The Senate this morning voted 78 to 22 to table the McCain/Biden Joint Resolution that would have authorized the President to use all necessary force, in concert with United States allies, to accomplish United States and NATO objectives in Yugoslavia.
While, I favor the thrust of the resolution, i.e. that NATO must do everything necessary to prevail in this conflict, I do not favor its timing.
The 19 NATO nations are united in their determination that Milosevic's campaign of terror will not be allowed to succeed. If the Senate had adopted this resolution, I believe that we would have put the Senate and this nation in a significantly different position than the rest of NATO in advance of a need to do so. NATO is unified on an air campaign. It is not yet unified on a ground campaign. A premature debate on a ground force could negatively impact on the unity of the Alliance.
I do believe that contingency planning for a NATO ground force should proceed as a prudent step, but there is no need for the Senate to authorize a ground force at this time. We must not be distracted by a premature debate about ground forces. Our focus and our efforts should be on accomplishing the military mission of significantly reducing Milosevic's capability to keep a stranglehold on Kosovo.
Senator Carl Levin
Thank God these men and other men and women like them in Congress had the good sense not to follow hawks McCain and Biden into war folly.
I wish many of those same Congresspeople would have recalled their intelligent 1999 decision when presented with the Iraq resolution in October, 2002.
Instead, many of them acted like frightened and brainwashed boobs....McCain among them...no surprise.
Facing It
by Yusef Komunyakaa
"My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
Copyright Yusef Komunyakaa 1988
Autumn brings the memory of
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Autumn marks both the birth and the passing of a great American figure, Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
Born November 12, 1815.. died October 26, 1902.
On July 19,1848, the first woman's rights convention was called by Stanton and Massachussetts-born Lucretia Mott (who was first President of the American Equal Rights Association.)
The first women's rights convention was held at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls, NY...not far from where I call home.
In Seneca Falls, N.Y.
Wesleyan Chapel, Seneca Falls, N.Y.. as it stands today.
Near the end of her life, the wise and enlightened Stanton penned one of the most meaningful speeches ever made in American history.
At the 1892 National American Woman Suffrage Association convention, Stanton retired as president and delivered her “Solitude of Self” speech, the fullest expression of her feminist philosophy.
The PBS "Not For Our Ourselves Alone" website says: "On January 18, 1892, Elizabeth Cady Stanton delivered her Solitude of Self address to the Congressional Judiciary Committee...." and presents the speech in its entirety.
In 1895, Stanton published the first volume of the Woman’s Bible, the culmination of her life-long interest in correcting biblical passages that are demeaning to women. It became an immediate bestseller and aroused widespread controversy.
Elizabeth did not live to see the 19th Amendment enfranchise women, which occurred on August 26, 1920..eighteen years after her death.
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click photo for Women's Rights National Park site
"...Neither the man movement nor the woman movement had a dated beginning. In the struggle upward toward political freedom, men were called upon to overthrow the universally accepted theory of the Divine Right of Kings to rule over the masses of men; women, the universally accepted theory of the Divine Right of Men to rule over women. The American Revolution forever destroyed the Divine Right of Kings theory in this country, but it left untouched the theory of the Divine Right of Man to rule over woman. Men and women believed it with equal sincerity, the church taught it, customs were based upon it, the law endorsed it, and the causes which created the belief had been so long lost in obscurity that men claimed authority for it in the "laws of God." All opposition to the enfranchisement of women emanated from that theory.
Students of human progress might have predicted at the inception of the American Republic that, should it continue, universal manhood and womanhood suffrage would become inevitable. The official announcement of the causes that led the American patriots into revolution emphasized two maxims as explanatory of all their grievances, namely, "Taxation without representation is tyranny" and "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." Although in the minds of the Colonists these aphorisms undoubtedly were limited in application to the relation which the Colonies bore to their Mother Country, it was as clear to individual men and women then, as to hundreds of thousands of them a hundred and forty years later, that a nation that proclaimed these principles upon the one hand and denied them upon the other, applied them to men and refused to apply them to women, presented so untenable an inconsistency that sooner or later professions and deeds would have to be squared..."
Carrie Chapman Catt / Nettie Rogers Shuler
from: "WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND POLITICS-
THE INNER STORY OF THE SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT"
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A wonderful book about the Seneca Falls/Finger Lakes region of NY from a unique perspective:
FROM WHERE WE STAND: RECOVERING A SENSE OF PLACE by Deborah Tall deals with ways we can authentically learn about our adopted places of residence.. by the consciousness of the heart and by our educated imagination. We come to discover our true home and roots by doing so.
